


static & dust

by pierianabeyance



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Tazswap, and a different version of ep66, i did my best lads...i did my best, just a lot of sweet sweet memory loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 19:24:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11364021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pierianabeyance/pseuds/pierianabeyance
Summary: “Look, I don’t want to get all fuckin’ emotional here or anything, but...I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough. For everything. I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have been able to make it through all of this if not for you. Thank you, Lup.”They hug in the doorway of the Starblaster’s kitchen and later she will think that it didn't last long enough.This is the last conversation that Lup ever has with her brother.--a little bit of ep66 tazswap :')





	static & dust

**Author's Note:**

> let me just say im PRETTY sure the relics thing shakes out differently in the actual tazswap au by the wonderful Tumblr User trainwreckgenerator but uhhhhhhhhhhh Look i just wanted some Role Swappin and for kravitz to be here. my laptop is broken. cut me some slack.  
> this could b better. maybe ill clean it up later. (thats a lie. i wont even proofread it.)  
> enjoy nyall

 There’s a sort of cruel irony to it, Taako thinks. A town turned to dust.

It’s not like he makes any kind of active effort to keep up with the whereabouts of the Philosopher’s Stone, nor any of the other relics for that matter, not like he knows some of the others do. He’s not like Kravitz, tracking his relic intensely, fretting endlessly over every little thing he hears any kind of rumor about it doing. But it’s the sort of thing that makes news, regardless, and he hears about it whether he wants to or not.

“Don’t know what the poor fucker was thinking,” he says when he tells Lup under the bright light of the kitchen while they clean up after dinner. “ _ Dust. _ Shit, at least make it something cool. Gold. Diamonds. Jello. I don’t know.” He tries to keep his voice from shaking, from giving away anything at all, but it’s not so easy to hide such things from Lup.

“There’s probably something...meaningful to it,” she shrugs. “To him, at least.”

Taako makes a point not to look in her direction. “Whatever.” 

He’s tried to apply the same indifference to this world as he has to the ninety-eight before it, but it gets harder the longer they stay. It’s harder to detach himself from the situation when now there’s no way out of it, this is their world now whether they like it or not and there’s really no reason for them to leave it. It’s a kind of permanence that Taako never expected to deal with, the kind of permanence that was less of a possibility and more of a pipe dream as far as he was concerned, but here it is. It’s a world where they’re going to have to stay, for better or for worse, and the longer he’s forced to face that fact the harder it is to stay detached.

“You might have had the right idea,” he says after a few minutes of silence have passed, still not looking in her direction. “With the gauntlet and all. Leaving it at just... _ damage _ . Pure  _ damage _ , nothing that be twisted around like...like  _ this _ .”

Lup doesn’t respond right away, but when she does her voice is quieter than before. “We’ve all done our share of damage. I’m not sure there  _ was _ a right idea.”

Taako picks the last plate up off the table and takes it to the sink, turning once he’s put it inside and leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. Finally, he looks at Lup, who’s looking right back at him, a tired look on her face that he’s become too familiar with in the past few months. “It’s not home,” he says. “But it’s supposed to be something like that, right? And now…” He trails off, uncertain.

Lup takes a few steps towards him with a slight smile, the most she can muster. “It still can be. It  _ will _ be.” She walks right up to the counter and leans against it next to him. “Whatever happens here...it’s better than what the Hunger would do. The Hunger...it would obliterate this world. There would be nothing left. And mark my words Taako, I’ll still try - if there’s any possibility that we can save what the Hunger has taken up to this point, I will do everything in my power to save it, I’ll do it if it kills me. For now, though, an obliterated world isn’t something we can salvage, but a broken world...a broken world can at least be  _ fixed. _ ”

Taako hums noncommittally, but he decides that at least is some small comfort. He can at least believe it as long as it’s coming from Lup.

They finish cleaning up without further comment on the fact or any further conversation at all until just before the leave, just before they head for their respective quarters. Taako stops Lup in the doorway and smiles, a small smile, but the most genuine he’s been able to give in a long time.

“Look, I don’t want to get all fuckin’ emotional here or anything, but...I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough. For everything. I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have been able to make it through all of this if not for you. Thank you, Lup.”

They hug in the doorway of the Starblaster’s kitchen and later she'll think that it didn't last long enough.

This is the last conversation that Lup ever has with her brother.

* * *

 

Taako’s exit, if it truly had to happen at all, should have been more than what it was. It almost annoys Lup how unremarkably he vanishes, there one minute and gone the next with nothing more than a letter on the kitchen table. According to Kravitz, he never even returned to his room the previous night, and it isn’t until dinner that evening that they really start to worry something might be stopping him from coming back.

They’re tireless in their search, and increasingly desperate. The war rages on below and every day that goes by where they don’t find him, the more they worry he’s been caught in the crossfires somewhere.

“But even if he died,” Kravitz mutters more to himself than anyone else, hunched over the map he’s laid out on the kitchen table one night. “Why wouldn’t he come back? Even if his physical body is gone, he should still be able to get here in his lich form, right? So where  _ is _ he?”

His note reads simply  _ be right back - t  _ and leaves no clues as to where he went. Lup goes through her last conversation with him about a hundred times over looking for something, anything that can tell her where he might have gone, but nothing that anyone can come up with leads them anywhere. 

Nobody wants to say that he’s gone, but really, what else is there to think?

* * *

 

The more time passes, the harder Kravitz looks. He’s relentless, always so hopeful in a way that Lup envies, the way she’s always been but is finding it increasingly difficult to continue to be. About a month and a half later at a somber dinner that Lup cooks alone and Davenport never shows up to, Hecuba quietly brings up the possibility that he might just be _ gone _ . Kravitz leaves the table without a word.

He’s hopeful, alright. So hopeful that he tries to block out the very concept that Taako could be  _ gone, _ refuses to consider it as even the slightest possibility. 

On the deck of the Starblaster, two years into their stay, Lup leans against the railing of the ship and looks up at the sky. It’s been a long time since she’s been able to wake up to see the same sky as many times as she has, and there are moments like these, brief,  _ brief  _ moments, where she’s able to find some beauty in it.

Behind her, Kravitz is staring intently down at the map pinned down on the table in front of him, finger tapping out a rhythm on a small piece of the exposed wooden surface. He used to hum when he was trying to focus, but Lup thinks that must be something that Taako took when he left for wherever he was going. God knows he took a few things from her too.

It’s hard to think about Taako without worrying, without missing him, without feeling frustrated and confused and lonely no matter how many people she’s with. Four months is nothing to her now, with over two centuries of life behind her, and the wound is still fresh. She frowns and tries to stay focused on the steady tapping on the table behind her and on the sky that’s almost familiar, to let herself stay in the moment of peace for just a second longer. To not think about war or missing family, to just revel in the thought of permanence, of being able to stay still for a little while longer.

The moment passes regardless of what she wants. The sky isn’t quite as bright as it should be. Sometimes she swears she can smell something burning from below, even though she knows it’s just a trick of the mind. She turns back to stand next to Kravitz at the table.

“How’s it going over here? Find anything?” She asks.

“I think so,” he says, the tapping ending abruptly as he moves his finger to a point on the map. “Here. Just past the Felicity Wilds, this dungeon here - there’s…” he sighs and moves his finger away. “It’s worth checking out, at least.”

Lup nods, choosing to ignore his sudden faltering. "That's not far from the stone's last location, is it?"

“It's within a reasonable range,” Kravitz nods. “I was going to head out pretty soon, take a look around. Will you be joining me?”

“Do you even need to ask?”

“Very well.”

Kravitz sighs again, taking a seat in the chair next to where he was standing and putting his head in his hands for a minute before he says anything at all. “I’m worried, Lup.” He admits, looking up but not at her, keeping his gaze somewhere off the railing of the ship.

Lup says nothing.

“He’s not...he can’t just be  _ gone.  _  He  _ isn’t. _ I have to believe that. We’ll find him.”

When Lup says nothing again, Kravitz looks up to find her looking back up at the sky with a far-off look in her eyes and an expression on her face that he can’t quite decipher. She blinks a few times, the sunlight shining harshly down on her, but she doesn’t look away from it - she keeps staring up, transfixed, like she’s looking for something.

“He’s not just gone, Lup. Right?”

Lup blinks one last time and looks back down at him with that same vacant look.

“Who?”

And just like that, he's gone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone has some thoughts abt this new ep to scream feel free to come join me in screaming on [tumbler dot com](http://celebitxt.tumblr.com)


End file.
